No Sense in Humour
by Aries Draco
Summary: Post DoC, no romance, just crack. Yuffie asks the question that has been plaguing her for some time, Shelke hears the answer as well and Vincent finds his mantle very useful. Finale! Where all questions are answered, except when they aren't.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Uh… I have no excuse for this. XD

No Sense of Humour

He knew that something was up when he turned around and, for the twelfth time that day, tripped over one ninja wannabe. "Do you _want_ something, Yuffie?" he asked finally after staring at her long enough to make her squirm.

She made her 'innocent' face that was anything but, bouncing slightly from foot to foot. Thankfully, she decided that it was in her best interest to actually speak. "You know, there's been something that I've wanted to ask you since forever, except that you were really scary back then and then there was the air-sickness and Meteor and…"

The problem with talking to Yuffie was that she had a tendency to ramble on incessantly, making less and less sense until she loses track of what she was originally intending to say. This was followed on by more embarrassed rambling to cover up her mistake.

"Yes?" inquired Vincent, voice coolly civil, though he was getting a little irritated at the bouncing girl. Tripping over someone twelve times in a day did nothing for one's mood.

"Doyouevertakethatoff?" she squeaked.

Yuffie stared at the crimson-clad man with wide eyes, watching for any hint of angst that would have sent her running. It wasn't a particularly polite question, but she just _had_ to know. In all the time they'd journeyed together, she had never seen Vincent take off his metal gauntlet. As in, ever. She'd even asked everyone else if _they_ had ever seen Vincent take that thing off, but the answer was always 'no'.

It had to be quite inconvenient, being metallic and pointy. How would he shower without taking it off? Or brush his teeth? Or…

"I can't."

Yuffie blinked. Vincent was averting his eyes from her as he continued in a deadpan, "My arm was mangled in the process of the experiments carried out on me. I seem to remember maggots or something, then trying to beat them to death with a…"

By this time, the ninja had run off to find a bathroom, lest she messed up the floor. The images! Oh, poor Vincent! She should never have asked!

Vincent watched her retreating figure with his calm red eyes. Then he smirked. No more tripping over that ninja-wannabe.

"Vincent Valentine, you lied to her," stated a female voice in apparent amusement.

The smirk fell away immediately and he coughed into his hand. "Shelke," he acknowledged, fixing a more serious expression on his face.

"But she'd believe anything," continued Shelke derisively. Her blue eyes flicked upward to the man's face. "I must say, however, I too am interested in the answer to her query."

"I didn't lie to her…"

Something flashed in the girl's face. "You mean… there really were maggots and mangled flesh and…" Seeing the expressionless look on the man's face, Shelke's eyes widened. Yuffie soon found a companion in her misery.

"I merely… exaggerated a little," mumbled Vincent to empty air, tugging up his mantle to cover up his very amused smile.

211206


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I was going to leave it as a one shot, but since some reviewers wanted the proper answer to the question… it won't be here. XP Wait for the next (last, hopefully) one.

No Sense in Humour

"You."

In all the time he had been alive, he had only ever heard one person turn 'you' into a swear word, and that was himself (he didn't get out much). However, Cid did a pretty good job of it too. Then again, this was _Cid_. God forbid he ever had kids; Shera would probably have to tape his mouth up.

"Yes…?" Vincent blinked at the blond, looking completely… normal.

"What the bleep did you tell the two girlies? They're clogging up the plumbing!"

It took a moment before Vincent processed the meaning behind this exclamation, after which he was doubly thankful for his cloak. He chanced a glance at the pilot, and noted that Cid was decidedly unhappy. Ah.

"Yuffie asked if I ever took this off and I gave her an answer," he replied finally, as diplomatically as he could.

The look in the pilot's eyes turned to one of suspicion. "What did you tell them?"

"That there were maggots?" catching the murderous look, he quickly added, "I was only joking." Rapid healing abilities aside, it still wouldn't be pleasant to be intimately acquainted with the business end of Cid's spear.

The spear-wielding man looked as if he was going to say something rating-inappropriate. Instead, he sighed and glared at Vincent. "You have a twisted sense of humour, Valentine."

The red-cloaked man shrugged, unsure of what to make of the comment.

"So, _do_ you ever remove that thing?"

"Occasionally," admitted Vincent. "I can show you."

Everyone in a two-corridor radius heard the string of expletives that followed. Reeve, in particular, caught the brunt of it, being just about to walk down the corridor Cid and Vincent were in. While his mind refused to process most of the little rant, the gist of the message went something like this:

"What the bleeping bleep?! Put that bleeping bleeper back on! You'll bleeping give me bleeping nightmares, you bleeping bleeper with your bleeping bleeped sense of humour!"

It was a rather odd thing to be screaming, which led Reeve to approach the two, forgetting that curiosity killed the cat (rather ironically, considering how many Cait Siths he'd lost to that same curiosity).

"What's going on?" he asked, perplexed at the rather green look on Cid's face and the completely unreadable one on Vincent's.

Vincent sighed. "Cid asked me if I ever removed my gauntlet…"

"Don't bleeping ask, Reeve, unless you want bleeping nightmares for the rest of your bleeping life."

On hearing that, Vincent seemed to disappear a little further into his red cloak. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "I don't think I should be attempting anymore humour."

"Damn right!"

"If anyone needs me, you have my number…"

If they hadn't known better, they would have sworn that Vincent was running away from the two of them.


	3. Chapter 3

Much apologies. It was supposed to be up about 3 months ago. I hope I can atone with this little finale.

No Sense in Humour

Cloud stared at Vincent. Vincent stared at Cloud.

"So…"

"…so…"

…

Neither were very social people, so Vincent was puzzling over why Cloud would seek him out, in his room, no less.

Cloud leaned against the locked door, half-frowning, as if he, too, was trying to figure out why he was in the room. Finally, he stood up straight and uncrossed his arms.

"Cid. He's storming around the ship, more so than usual. I gathered from his ranting that you had something to do with it."

Oh. That. Again. Vincent buried his face in his good hand. Growling slightly, he slammed his gauntleted hand into the wall, making Cloud jump back warily.

"Do you want to see it too?" asked Vincent in a scarily low voice. "Even with Chaos and the other beasts gone, I'm still a monster because of _this_." He clicked the golden gauntlet open and presented his arm to the blond, looking down at his lap. Anytime now, Cloud would probably… oh, perhaps swear or throw up or faint. And no, he wasn't sulking, thank you very much.

"That's it?"

"Huh?"

Cloud was staring at the arm with something approaching curiosity. "What happened? Looks like it's part-machine…"

"You aren't freaked out?"

Blue eyes stared at him. "Hojo," was all Cloud said.

"Ah." Right. Cloud had gone through Hojo's hands before too, so something like this was probably pretty routine. Lowering his arm, Vincent absently began to clean it. "Well, apparently, most of it was rotting away. Lucrecia tried to save as much as she could, but she had to add all this stuff to make it functional, and, as you can see, it isn't pretty."

"Lucrecia?"

Vincent grinned wryly. "Well, she _was_ the head of biomechanical engineering. I suppose this was the only way that made sense to her." The remains of his arm, combined with various mechanical parts, all hidden beneath a gauntlet made for combat. Lucrecia's last mark on him.

Clicking the gauntlet back into place, he looked up at Cloud. Cloud looked down at him. And grinned.

"No, you're not using me to freak the rest of the people out."

"Aw, damnit."


End file.
